ehssan Posted September 12, 2021 Share Posted September 12, 2021 Hi guys, Recently the youtuber ETA prime released a video where he showcased the new Launchbox for android. In the video he gets access to his sd card to import his games/roms seemingly sidestepping the scoped storage issue plaguing android 11 users. Excited to finally get to free up some space on my Galaxy tab S6's (running android 11) internal memory I downloaded the free version of launchbox. However, when trying to import my games from an USB drive connected via an usb hub to the tablet I don't get the option to select the USB drive in the dialogue box "Select folder". So i'm wondering if this feature is something reserved for only the premium version or is it something i'm doing wrong? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted September 13, 2021 Share Posted September 13, 2021 On 9/12/2021 at 2:33 AM, ehssan said: Hi guys, Recently the youtuber ETA prime released a video where he showcased the new Launchbox for android. In the video he gets access to his sd card to import his games/roms seemingly sidestepping the scoped storage issue plaguing android 11 users. Excited to finally get to free up some space on my Galaxy tab S6's (running android 11) internal memory I downloaded the free version of launchbox. However, when trying to import my games from an USB drive connected via an usb hub to the tablet I don't get the option to select the USB drive in the dialogue box "Select folder". So i'm wondering if this feature is something reserved for only the premium version or is it something i'm doing wrong? Hi @ehssan, we are seeing some unfortunate issues where LaunchBox is not allowed to write to SD cards due to the scoped storage issues (thanks for nothing, Google). But as of yet, I have not seen an issue where LaunchBox can't read from external storage on Android 11. However, we've been primarily testing with SD cards, of course; we have tested with USB drives, but definitely not with that specific device. So first off, if you have an SD card slot, I would try seeing if that works. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beachsidesurf Posted September 15, 2021 Share Posted September 15, 2021 On 9/13/2021 at 1:35 PM, Jason Carr said: Hi @ehssan, we are seeing some unfortunate issues where LaunchBox is not allowed to write to SD cards due to the scoped storage issues (thanks for nothing, Google). But as of yet, I have not seen an issue where LaunchBox can't read from external storage on Android 11. However, we've been primarily testing with SD cards, of course; we have tested with USB drives, but definitely not with that specific device. So first off, if you have an SD card slot, I would try seeing if that works. I also cannot get LB to see my external SDcard where I have ROMS. The SD card is being read through a dongle. I also tried with a USB drive. I am using a galaxy S21. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beachsidesurf Posted September 15, 2021 Share Posted September 15, 2021 To elaborate, I tested a SanDisk 32gb ultrafit usb 3. 1 over a usb type c dongle. My phone can see the usb drive and I can access the files on the drive. However, when I launch LB it will not see this drive and only see the internal drive. I believe this is a android 11 shared storage. Any thoughts. I believe the drive is formatted fat32. I use this drive for retroarch on my fire stick to store rooms. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted September 15, 2021 Share Posted September 15, 2021 I haven't tested with dongles so far, so perhaps that's the issue. The curious thing though is that we're using the built-in storage mechanisms, so they should show up, but Android doesn't always do things the way they should, sigh. I'll see if I can grab a dongle and/or a USB drive to test with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beachsidesurf Posted September 15, 2021 Share Posted September 15, 2021 Thanks Jason. I appreciate it. I can see my files on the usb drive through file explorer but neither launch box or retroarch will see the drive inside the respective app. On my fire stick I can see and load roms directly from the usb using an otg. Anywho, excited to start using LB. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted September 15, 2021 Share Posted September 15, 2021 1 hour ago, beachsidesurf said: Thanks Jason. I appreciate it. I can see my files on the usb drive through file explorer but neither launch box or retroarch will see the drive inside the respective app. On my fire stick I can see and load roms directly from the usb using an otg. Anywho, excited to start using LB. Okay, well that's interesting. If Retroarch can't see the ROM files, then most likely we won't be able to launch Retroarch regardless. But I'll still dive in and see what I can figure out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beachsidesurf Posted September 15, 2021 Share Posted September 15, 2021 Something I noticed was that my USB drive was being mounted to mnt/media_rw instead of being in /storage. I think this could be the issue. I am not too savvy with Android file structure so I don't know why it is showing up there instead of next to internal storage. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 17 hours ago, beachsidesurf said: Something I noticed was that my USB drive was being mounted to mnt/media_rw instead of being in /storage. I think this could be the issue. I am not too savvy with Android file structure so I don't know why it is showing up there instead of next to internal storage. Yes, that's probably why. If Android isn't telling us what it is from retrieving all of the storage devices, it'll probably be difficult to find it. I'll be on this soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beachsidesurf Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 https://forum.developer.samsung.com/t/usb-massive-storage-not-recognized-in-galaxy-s20-android-11/9758 Above is a link that outlines the problem I am having and some folks discussion about it. As we expected this seems to be caused by android 11. Thanks for the help. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beachsidesurf Posted September 16, 2021 Share Posted September 16, 2021 (edited) 1 hour ago, beachsidesurf said: https://forum.developer.samsung.com/t/usb-massive-storage-not-recognized-in-galaxy-s20-android-11/9758 Above is a link that outlines the problem I am having and some folks discussion about it. As we expected this seems to be caused by android 11. Thanks for the help. Did some more digging and looks like external drives will mount to /mnt/media_rw instead of under /storage on android 11. It is even inaccessible through adb shell. This the issue for both retroarch and LB. Other than rooting which most people won't do it seems like both retroarch and LB will need to support the storage access framework in order to use these drives. Edited September 16, 2021 by beachsidesurf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted September 18, 2021 Share Posted September 18, 2021 On 9/16/2021 at 12:35 PM, beachsidesurf said: Did some more digging and looks like external drives will mount to /mnt/media_rw instead of under /storage on android 11. It is even inaccessible through adb shell. This the issue for both retroarch and LB. Other than rooting which most people won't do it seems like both retroarch and LB will need to support the storage access framework in order to use these drives. Oh lovely. Well if that's the case, then there is no solution currently. If either of our apps upgraded to the very broken storage access framework, it would ruin the possibility of communication between the frontend (us) and the emulator (Retroarch). Unfortunately the storage access framework is so poorly designed that it doesn't even provide an option (or at least not a documented one) for being able to properly share files between apps. So that of course ruins the possibility of a frontend. If anyone knows otherwise or has documentation that shows how it can be done, please let me know. Currently, I don't believe it can. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.